This September 11th Barcelona has witnesed the biggest demonstration ever in its history. The march has been organized by the citizenship to demand freedom for Catalonia. Between 1.5M and 2M people have marched peacefully together with a single message: 'Catalonia, a New European Country'.

To give adequate witness to this massive historical event we have shot this amazing gigapan.

To better understand the significance of September 11th, Catalonia is a nation that has been in search of freedom and independence for itself for a few centuries. Catalona has its own distinct culture and its own Catalan language. Both have more than a thousand years of history and are prevalent at all levels of society, from day to day street talk to politics, media, academic research, etc.
The Catalan language is ranked the 75th from 6,900 languages around the world. According to Ethnologue ( www.ethnologue.com/ethno_docs/distribution.asp?by=size Will open in a new tab or window), Catalan has around 10M speakers, more than Norwegian (132th), Hebrew (121), Danish (118) or Swedish (88th). Catalan is also the 9th EU language according to number of people having an understanding of it and the 11th according to level of use.

September 11th is the Catalan national day as it is on that very same date in 1714 that Catalonia received its greatest ever military blow. Every 11th of September, Catalonia remembers that the Catalan troops defending Barcelona were defeated by the army of Spanish king Felipe V. That king abolished the Catalan nation and forbade Catalan as a language.

Once in the beginning of the twentieth century, Catalonia experienced a great renaissance, both socially and culturally (sporting worldwide-celebrated artists such as Gaudí) and had big freedom aspirations. Such desires were squashed by the fascist revolution led by General Franco who -victorious after a bitter civil war and helped by Hitler and the Nazi regime- in 1939 started a dictatorship that lasted nearly 50 years. That fascist rule aimed to erase all traces of Catalan language and identity.

Since the outcome of decomcracy in spain in 1975, an ever increasing number Catalans have looked to independence as their future.

This September 11th has seen without any doubt the greatest march in Catalan history and probably one of the most remarkable in the world's history of democracy.